:shrug: Just thinking out loud.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y131/Skinjack/eldaassy.jpg

OOOOO! PRETTY!!!!!!! :drool: :drool:

I voted for the tree/cave idea because I loved that when I first heard of it. I really like that orb too though, that would be cool to see with that spiderweb effect!

This is one I plan to get once it is done so keep up the good work and dont give up on it!

Maria

Thats pretty intersing Skinjack but I to favor the tree idea. :S

I think the tree goes along with all of those elven creations that were developed over the years.

sieboldii

[edit] Sort of wish I could have checked this, too - Smack Rogue_Shadow upside the head for starting all of this.

:meh: Guess we could always have it hanging like that under the tree in the cave. And I guess I should stop playing with the orb idea and think about the tree thing again. Although I think you tree huggers are getting outvoted.

OK. Quick question. How are leaves put on the trees in Morrowind? Are they a texture placed on a simple object, or are they actual objects? Don't laugh. I have a lot of tree models with individual leaves modelled on them. Of course, that's why they're 200k plus polys. I have a new tree model I was playing with a few weeks back, but it has the leaves on it. They're separate objects, though, so if I can delete them it radically reduces the polys in the model.

Oh, and as for the tree, I'm leaning towards something like this (see center of triptych):

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y131/Skinjack/the_glory_of_valhalla_by_nebezial.jpg

We could always add a few smaller buildings out in the limbs, but the shops in the trunks could be built from basic cubes, limiting the poly hit.

Bring the chansaw's.

The leaves on trees for MW are all Alpha maps. Planes that have textures of branches or groups of leaves basicly with the surrounding being omitted by the engine.

Cool. I'll delete the leaves and see how many polys that leaves in the tree. Actually its two trees. I took a nice, healthy straight one and added a crooked old dying one together at the base. Looks kind of neat actually. I think I even put a doorway in the lower part for the dark shop. Maybe I'll need to add the building blocks to see how it looks. So, um, what kind of limits do we have on scale? You're probably talking a tree the size of a redwood plus some.

Yes a redwood would be a sufficient size i would imagine. I love the redwoods.

I suppose the exterior doesn't necessarily have to be representative of the interior. It could be a lot bigger on the inside. This is supposed to be a mystical place, after all.

Skinjack being clever.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y131/Skinjack/eldaassy1.jpg

See? The concept still works for a cave. I just need to deform the 'ceiling' some, and I still need to throw Oriphier's monoliths in there. Maybe some more displays and some mannequins. I guess you could line the outer wall with, oh, I don't know, about 1000 mannequins to display the clothes, etc. :hehe: And maybe my reaver scythes with the skeletons crossed over the entry. This is without the secondary support webs for clarity. The shopkeeper will stand at the dais in the center. Need to find a new spider model, though. That one is 52k. I think I figured the room at about 175 feet in diameter. That makes for a big spider. The displays are about 4 feet tall, if that helps put things in perspective better.

Again, just thinking out loud.

I like it. I only wish you would learn to use 3dsmax, would make texturing and so on much easier.

Actually, most of this could be remade in Max pretty easily. I just need to find out how to copy a drawing into Max to extrude the web. Shouldn't be a big deal. The spider is a completely separate model, the cave is a sphere, and the display I think has 272 polys. I have cad drawings of the web and biohazard floor tiling, so maybe I'll give this a try in Max this week. The only really poly heavy item is the secondary web from the first pic, and I think I can figure a way around redoing that with less.... clutter.

I like the tree idea. Oh and I have an Idea of my own for it if I may have some input.

You could add some extra branches on the tree that have no purpose and then have people claim them and build shops and stuff on to the tree.

Question. I know in game a person is about 128 units (6') in height. What does that equate to in default Max units? I know its easy enough to scale something in Max, but I'd rather start out at least in the right ballpark when I try modelling this 'cave' in Max tonight.

haha wish I could help. I always played the guessing game.

Edit: Maybe ask Phijama I seen he posted here a few days ago. He gets into all that technical stuff.

It reminds me of Telperion.......why dont you just change that into a store? its way too big for a house lol

I Could not vote objectively, so i didn't... I too have never even seen such project before... but well since it looks like pretty good mod, and large (correct me if im wrong) and so i would say finish the mod if its not allready...
My appologies but i just dont have so much time to read lall posts here...

Sorry I never replied to this. It never occured to me that SolidWorks would export as a spline, but apparently it can as an .iges file, which Max can import. So, is this what you mean by sending the model as only splines?

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y131/Skinjack/Splines.jpg

I can convert pretty much any SolidWorks file in this manner, but if you're going to put surfaces on individually, you're talking a lot of work. Unless its easier to apply surfaces in Max than in Solidworks. But if its something you want to tinker with, I can convert and send you all of the files for the original Eldanorcara tree shop that I did waaaay back. And I know you did some textures for it at one point, so you might be able to re-use them.

can you export it as dwg? spline or Pline are the curves or lines you use in order to create surface

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b68/Oriphier/IM01.jpg an idea of the orb ( the underground one i suppose ) just consider it is a 5 minutes sketch without any textures right now it is about 10k poly but i can reduce it to 2k poly quite easily.

That looks pretty cool, although I think we have dropped the lower half of the orb to make a single level cave (unless we want to throw in a couple of branches off the main cave). I was working under the premise of using the floating orb, but it seems some people would rather stick to the original tree/cave idea. :shrug: Its all good. As for a dwg, are you talking 2d or 3d? I can export the splines into an iges and then probably resave them as a dwg. I'll check on that and let you know.

Yeah, I can save it as a 3d dwg by exporting from SolidWorks as an iges and opening it in Rhino to resave it as a dwg. Do you want me to send you a simple file to see if its what you are looking for?

yeah it should work let try it with something simple. send me it to my mail address.

ok it works fine let's start to put down 2 or 3 ideas.

It works? Cool. Maybe I should send you a more complicated model before we decide that, though. As for ideas, do you mean about the shop? I'm assume we are still working on the tree/cave concept? I guess I could convert and send you the files for the original shop that you had started to texture after I get home tonight. That should keep you busy for awhile. Or we could make something completely different. I've been working on an alternate tree design (although I have to find a different healthy tree - this one has leaves in the mesh). I'll get you a pic of it when I get home.

How many polys did you wind up with on the model?

omg I come back two years later lol, 'still getting pm's' and this is still in the works! Wow lol I say release everything and let them be resources for all those new creative modders to use. And hi everyone.